USA Club Cross Championships!

29:38-1st place overall! (Michael Scott Photo)

After a tough week of training, the race turned out far better than I could have planned. At USA Club XC Championships, I ran 29:38 for a 10 second victory and my first National Title!  Truthfully, this week was not going very well, especially coming of the USATF annual meeting in St. Louis that I attended. All week I felt a little beat up from the travel so I cut my mileage back to only doing single runs in the hope that I would have a fighting chance to make the team to Scotland....

Despite my nerves, once the gun went off, it was all business. I got off the line extremely well, and was never more than a few steps out of the lead from the gun. Around 5k I slid into the lead and went roughly 14:56/14:44 for my splits. Once I actually started to pull away, I kept waiting to get caught, but I only increased my lead with each lap. With 1k to go, I was able to just focus on making one muddy turn then breaking the tape! It was great to earn my first national championship over a very good field, and a lot of runners that I look up to. Here is a link to the race and also my  post race interview! (both thanks to runnerspace.com!)

Of course with the win, I am now headed to Scotland as part of the US National Team. It is a great honor to be able to earn that singlet, and the outpouring of support from my family, friends, and teammates has been an extraordinary and irreplaceable part of my career so far! My coach at Team USA Minnesota, Dennis Barker, has really been an incredible catalyst since I moved here in September to make this possible.

Now my next race is in Scotland on January 7th!

Catching up ......

Ok, this is a much needed update! My last race was the TD5k where I ran a huge road 5k pr of 14:18. It was a fun run with my teammate Jason Lehmkuhle (he ran 14:22) and my first win as a professional! Both the times were unofficial, as the race was not chip timed. It was a great event hosted by Lifetime Fitness whose treadmills I have been abusing now that the weather is getting colder! The weather for the race this year was perfect, especially considering the year before it was apparently around 0 degrees. We used the Turkey I won as an excuse for a small team dinner with lots of good food (thanks to Megan Hogan for cooking like a champ!)

Getting it done!

Training has gone really well under my new coach (Dennis Barker) and I get another test this weekend at the USATF Club XC Championships with my teammate, and training partner, Matt Llano. I am definitely excited for this weekend as we are both going for a spot on the team for Edinburgh. They are taking 3 athletes, and that is what we are going for!

One thing that I have not talked about but wanted to mention was my race in Japan after the 10 mile. I ran the anchor on our "Ivy League" team with a 10.2k leg. I ran the fourth fastest time on my leg running down two guys that had a minute advantage over me at the start! I moved us up from 10th to 8th and snuck us on to the podium for the first time ever! It was an incredible experience, and a bigger recap of the whole thing is here on Brett Larner's blog (who gave us a great running tour of Tokyo).

Stay healthy and run hard!